Hidden Lamp Study Group

Join Zenshin Florence Caplow for a "Hidden Lamp Study Group," June 13, July 18, and August 8 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. MT. An interactive monthly zoom meeting will focus on the book, "The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty Five Centuries of Awakened Women," co-edited by Zenshin and Susan Moon. We focus on individual stories as a mirror for our lives and practice. Online, Donation Requested.

The Changing Status of Women: Ven. Tenzin Palmo

In this final posting of this month-long offering on Buddhist Women’s history, I wanted to feature the Venerable Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. So I wrote to her asking if her busy schedule would permit her time to submit something. She replied that it was unlikely as she would be traveling, but in her characteristic forthrightness she added,” A history of women in Buddhism could be summed up with ‘overlooked and undervalued’, but maybe [you are asking for] a few words more about why.”

Despite her inability to write something particular for this issue, I thought the readership might appreciate a few excerpts illustrating her seminal advocacy for the support, respect and full inclusion (via full ordination) of female Buddhist monastics globally.

Tenzin Palmo (Diane Perry) is an Englishwoman who began studying Buddhism in the 1960’s. In 1976, she began a twelve-year meditation retreat in a cave in Ladakh. In the biography, Cave in the Snow by Vicki Mackenzie, she relates how the negative aspects of the role of women in the male-dominated tradition that is Buddhism were brought to light at the first Conference on Western Buddhism.

In March 1993, in Dharamasala, seat of the Dalai Lama in exile, she was one of the participating nuns, … and with all her natural eloquence she told her tale: “When I first came to India I lived in a monastery with 100 monks. I was the only nun,’ she said, and paused for several seconds for her words to sink in. ‘I think that is why I eventually went to live by myself in a cave.’ Everyone got the point. ‘The monks were kind, and I had no problems of sexual harassment or troubles of that sort, but of course I was unfortunately within a female form. They actually told me they prayed that in my next life I would have the good fortune to be reborn as a male so that I could join in all the monastery’s activities. In the meantime, they said, they didn’t hold it too much against me that I had this inferior rebirth in the female form. It wasn’t too much my fault.’

Seizing her chance, she went on to fire her biggest salvo–an exposé on the situation of the Western Sangha, particularly the nuns whom she had befriended in Italy. “The lamas ordain people and then they are thrown out into the world with no training, preparation, encouragement, support or guidance-and they’re expected to keep their vows, do their practice and run dharma centers. This is very hard and I’m surprised that so many of the Western Monastics stay as long as they do. I’m not surprised when they disrobe. They start with so much enthusiasm, with so much pure faith and devotion and gradually their inspiration decreases. They get discouraged and disillusioned and there is no one who helps them. This is true, Your Holiness. It’s a very hard situation and it has never happened in the history of Buddhism before.”

“In the past the Sangha was firmly established, nurtured and cared for. In the West this is not happening. I truly don’t know why. There are a few monasteries, mostly in the Theravada tradition, which are doing well, but for the nuns what is there? There is hardly anything quite frankly. But to end on a higher note, I pray that this life of purity and renunciation which is so rare and precious in the world, that this jewel of the Sangha may not be thrown down into the mud of our indifference and contempt.”

It was an impassioned, formidable cry from the heart.

When she had finished a great hush fell over the gathering. No one was laughing now. As for Tenzin Gyatso, (the Dalai Lama), the Great Ocean of Wisdom, regarded by his people as an emanation of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion, he was sitting there, head in his hands, silently weeping. …”

(excerpted from http://www.khandro.net/Buddhism_women.htm)

By 1998, Tenzin Palmo had single-handedly raised enough money to buy the land and build the foundations of her nunnery in Himachal Pradesh, India. Founded in 2000, the Dongyu Gatsal Ling nunnery now houses 60 nuns; a group of senior nuns are currently in a three-year retreat, preparing for initiation into the Togdenma tradition. (Togdenma were yoginis, special nuns who lived in caves in the mountains of Tibet and performed Tantric practices. These practices must be handed down orally, like a living flame, from established Togden practitioners. Since the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the lineage has stood in grave danger of permanent extinction. )

Tenzin Palmo is optimistic that — not only for the Togdenma but in a wider context — “things are changing.” She says, “One of the problems in the past was that even if women became very accomplished, it was very difficult for them to express what they had realized since they were illiterate. Millions of women have attained enlightenment, but nobody wrote their biographies, so you don’t hear of them. They were outside the hierarchy; they didn’t found big monasteries or start lineages, therefore they weren’t considered important. They were the unheard voice.”

(excerpted from http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/there-still-glass-ceiling-enlightenment)

Venerable Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, also serves as the president of Sakyadhita, the international association of Buddhist women, and is a featured presenter at the June 2015 biannual conference in Yogyakarta.